


The Books of Jo

by alizarin_nyc



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: spn_women, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-26
Updated: 2010-01-26
Packaged: 2017-12-07 00:52:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/742181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alizarin_nyc/pseuds/alizarin_nyc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the beginning was the word and the word was <i>hunt.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Books of Jo

**Author's Note:**

> Includes mention of canonical deaths.  
> Written for akeyoftime for spn_women 2009

**Genesis**

It was a slow birth, the birth of the hunter, a breech baby, one Joanna Beth Harvelle.

She landed on her feet, born ready to hunt demons and follow in her father's and her mother's footsteps. It should have been easy, but nothing was ever easy when you were Ellen's daughter. It would have been okay had Daddy lived, they'd be one big happy huntin' family until they all died together on the job. But it was Daddy who went first, and so Mommy spent her every waking minute trying to crush the hunter right out of her daughter, smother her baby, put her baby in a basket and hide it in the rushes so the ghosts and ghouls would never find it.

**Exodus**

Dean and Sam Winchester showed Jo what she ought to be. What she ought to have been since she was 12.

Dean is pretty, but he's cheesy, and she doesn't want just another hunter. She doesn't want to be just another notch on Dean's belt either. Sam doesn't do it for her, in spite of the fact he's had a little college and she likes that about him.

They walk in, parentless, and Jo can taste the freedom on them, along with all the pain and fear and dirty boy-sweat that means they're just about to be men.

She thinks they are going to help punch her ticket to ride. So she gets in on a job with them, busts open her mother's possessiveness, and it feels good, like kicking down doors and blasting shotguns. So yeah, of course, it backfires.

When she's close enough to dying, to being tortured by a serial killer sonofabitch ghost, she starts to panic. Maybe this isn't the life for her. Maybe she misses her mother, just a little. Maybe she thinks Dean and Sam are bug-fucking nuts to do this all the time. Maybe she'll go to college after all.

_Nah._

Later, her home blows up and that makes her really pissed. It wasn’t just _her_ safe haven, it was a haven for a lot of them. But she’s broken the ties that bind and is making her own way in the world. She could really use some help, though.

She finds herself thinking far too often, “what would Ellen do?”

**Leviticus**

Hunting is more of a sacrifice than Jo could have imagined. If she hears her mother yelling at her one more time for leaving her drying drawers draped over the sink faucet, she may scream. She just can't wear dirty panties, it's a thing with her. Ellen can go for days without changing clothes. She can sleep in her boots. Her hair is brushed only twice a day and she uses chapstick. Jo misses her curling iron and her hair dryer, her fuck-me red lipstick, her dime-store sundresses and lavender body lotion. Among other things. She's learned to eat just half a hamburger since the healthy items on the diner menus are god-awful and if she eats what she wants and then sits in a car for hours, she gets a little fat. And it's not like there's anywhere to buy new jeans, and no money to boot.

Their credit cards are maxed out on weapons. There are no extras when you’re hunting.

She's never had such thick blisters on her hands, not even when Daddy was teaching her how to shoot from dawn until lunchtime and then again until dark. She learns how to stitch a wound, and that's a bitch. But hospitals are a waste of time and make you a sitting duck. Everyone knows that.

There are laws they follow, and they don't get killed. They trust each other, but they have to do the occasional shot of Holy Water just to show each other they’re the real deal. In a fight, Ellen calls the shots. Jo follows instructions to the letter when things are hot, but when they're not, she shouts her mother down because she knows a few things, too and she ain't no blind follower.

There’s a playbook and she’s a player. Her right to fight wasn’t handed to her, unasked for, not like Dean, not like Sam. With Ellen, she has to _earn it_. She has to carve her name on the wall, score it deep there where no one can remove it no matter what.

But she does. She earns it.

**Numbers**

Ellen and Jo bag at least one demon every three days. They've burnt nearly thirty bone-piles and saved 72 people. Jo counts. She counts the people. Because if you don't do it for the people, you're doing it for all the wrong reasons. She knows Dean and Sam don't know that. She knows that even her mom doesn't fully get it. They think they're the righteous right hand of god.

She knows she's just a girl. She's just a human girl, born into the wrong family at the wrong time. She's too pretty, too small, too smart for most of this stuff, but she's clever enough to use all that to her advantage. She's played victim, hooker, airhead, bar maid, masseuse, mechanic, kid sister, cheerleader and more. If she wasn't Joanna Beth Harvelle, she might have had a decent career in Hollywood.

She hears about Dean. She hears about Sam. She knows they're more special than she gave them credit for in the beginning. Part of her wishes that... but no. No point. Dean may be something special, but he's still Dean Winchester, and he's not her man.

She racks up her own tally of men and boys (and girls). She has a right to.

**Deuteronomy**

“You and me, kid, to the end.” That’s her mother’s covenant to her. An unbreakable contract between the two of them. And once the Apocalypse begins, Jo knows it’s her covenant, too. Even if a miracle happens and the world goes back to normal and so do they? They’ll still be in each other’s back pockets. They’ll grow old together.

Her mom makes her a lot of promises. Some are more like threats. “When we’re done here, Joanna Beth, you’re going straight to college like a normal girl.” Whatever it is with Ellen and education, it’s a river that runs deep. So Jo nods her head, promises. Who knows? They get out alive, who knows what she’ll do? Maybe she’ll _want_ a fucking education. Hell, LAPD, FBI, the military. She could have a career, it’s not too weird to think about that sometimes.

Mostly though, she knows she won’t see her 25th birthday and she’s made peace with that.

 

 

**Revelations**

Jo gets to skip a lot of the bullshit of life.

She won't have a boyfriend, so thank god she fucked that cutie at the truck stop that one day when she couldn't stand to be with her mom another minute. And thank god she let that hot lesbian bartender feel her up and finger her in the bathroom of that saloon somewhere in Kentucky. Thank god for whiskey and tequila and bacon cheeseburgers. She won't get old, her liver won't give out and she won't get heavy - with a gut or regret.

She's going to die right here, in this hardware store in this godforsaken backwater fuck of a town. And there are a lot of never-haves, but there are a lot of things she doesn't regret. She's seen things other people can only have nightmares about and she's saved their stupid asses.

Even the ones who never knew it are precious to her.

Ellen won't let go. That's her prerogative and that's what makes her Ellen. Her mom. The covenant is unbroken, the promise fulfilled. "That's my good girl," are the words Jo hears at the last. And Jo knows it's truer than true.

Jo Harvelle is a hunter. And she's gonna die like one.

On her way to the afterlife she passes Death come riding in on his fucking horse and she gives him the finger.  



End file.
